Pop Quiz
What author said: “The disappearance of the Jewish state will not mean the disappearance of anti-Semitism.”?
What playwright attributed this quote to a Jewish character: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”?
What political figure said: “Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.”?
What Romanian born writer observed: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”
Answers at the end of this post
As it was in Europe in 1914 we are sleepwalking toward a military conflagration in the Levant. The area historically known as the Levant today includes Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza strip and Israel. This death march is aided and abetted by the appalling ignorance of our people, allegedly educated at our finest colleges and universities. But always keep in mind that you don’t get an education at Harvard you merely attend Harvard.
Defining the Terms
The term anti-Semite is a misnomer. The word Semite is defined as “a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs”. So an anti-Semite would be a person who hates and fears both Jews and Arabs. However the term is now defined, according to Google, as a person who is hostile to or prejudiced only the against Jewish people. As such we will use the term anti-Jewish when referring to those who oppose the existence of Israel, its people and worldwide Jewry.
We are witnessing today a movement that is anti-Jewish to its core. It is masked by pejorative references to Zionists and to Israel as an occupation of “Palestine”. It is evidenced by hate crimes in the US against all things Jewish. In 2022 there were 1,305 hate crimes committed against Jews as compared to only 205 such offenses against Muslims. Sadly our leftist media, social and news, and Democrats, believe that accusing anyone remotely supportive of Israel and the Jews of being Islamophobic protects them from criticism of their anti-Jewish slurs and intolerance. In the first two months of 2023 there were 33 attacks on Jewish institutions including 15 attacks on synagogues. It is hard to argue that an attack on a synagogue in America is somehow a response to the existence of Israel. It is rather a clear demonstration of hatred of the Jewish people, an echo of the zeitgeist that ended up becoming the Holocaust.
Islamophobia is a term of recent creation. It did not even appear in the 1966 edition of The Random House Dictionary. It is used to create a moral equivalency between being anti-Jewish and being anti-Muslim. In the Levant it must be remembered that the Muslims were late comers to the area as compared to Jews and Christians.
Learning the History of the Levant
The Religious History
Three major religions have deep roots in the Levant:
- Judaism: The Jewish people first arrived in the region about 3.300 years ago when Abraham migrated with his family to Jerusalem. The Torah provides the basis of the Jewish faith.
- Christianity: Jesus of Nazareth was born 2,100 years ago in what is now Israel and the Christian faith originates in the Levant. The Bible, including the books of the Torah, is the basis of the Christian faith.
- Islam: In about 610, 1,500 years ago, Islam was founded by the Prophet Muhammad who was born in Mecca. The Koran sets forth the belief system of the Muslim faith.
Basis for the Various Claims to the Region
The Jews regard the region as Eretz Yisrael or the Land of Israel. This has Biblical roots. The name came from Abraham’s grandson Jacob who was named Israel in the Torah. It is the basis of the Jewish claim that present day Israel is the homeland of all Jews.
The Muslim claim to the area now known as Israel is based on a dream of Muhammad in which he was flown to Jerusalem to visit the “farthest mosque”. There is no historical support of this event.
The Christians came to refer to the area as the Holy Land based on the nativity of Jesus Christ.
The Geography
The present conflict in the region is so far limited to Israel and what is called Palestine. Historically Palestine was the generic description of the Levant but there has never been a nation state called Palestine. For three millennia the population has been in flux and the Levant has been occupied by a number of external conquerors.
The Israelis are described by its critics as an “occupation”. The Levant has been “occupied” by many outside parties but the Jews have always held that it is their “homeland”.
It has been occupied by Alexander the Great, the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Persians. In Josephus’s history, it is claimed that, after the Macedonian General Ptolemy I Soter occupied Judea, he led some 120,000 Jewish captives from the areas of Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria, and Mount Gerizim to Egypt whereupon they were enslaved by the Egyptians. Many other Jews, attracted by the fertile soil and Ptolemy’s liberality, emigrated there of their own accord.
Alexander the Great invaded the region in 332 BC and over the next 400 years it was governed by various external empires with the Romans finally being removed in 636 AD. At that time the area was occupied forcibly by Islamic forces. Both the Christians and Jews were persecuted following the Muslim conquest.
In response to the Muslim occupation Pope Urban II organized the First Crusade to “take back the Holy Land.” Ultimately the various Crusades were defeated by the Turks and the Levant became part of the Ottoman Empire. That ended when the Turks were defeated in World War I and the area became a League of Nations Protectorate.
The End of the Ottoman Empire
In World War I the Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, was allied with Germany and it was dissolved at the end of the War. In 1914 the total population of Trans-Jordan and Palestine was about 795,000. The breakdown by ethnicity was: Muslim 591,000, 84,000 Jews, 73,000 Christians, 7,000 Druses and the remainder Samaritans, Bahais, Sikhs, Hindus and Metawilehs.
In 1916 the Asia Minor Agreement, aka the Sykes-Picot Agreement, partitioned the Levant from the Ottoman Empire. It was broken down as follows: (1) the Blue Zone which was to be managed by the French. It included Syria, Lebanon and the bulk of Galilee; (2) the Red Zone which was to be controlled by the British. It included southern Mesopotamia; and, (3) the International Zone which is the area where Israel is located today. The Picot-Sykes Agreement was very controversial.
In 1917 the British issued the Balfour Declaration which became the basis for The Palestine Mandate that was issued by the League of Nations in 1922. The stated intent was to acknowledge the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. Article 4 specifically called for the “establishment of the Jewish national home.” It is clear that Israel is not an “occupation” but rather the result of an international agreement established by the League of Nations.
It is clear to anyone who understands this short history that Israel is not an occupation but rather the culmination of a journey of three millennia. It has an absolute right to survive in peace. But alas the Neanderthals that are Hamas and Hezbollah “think” otherwise and seem willing to engage in any level of atrocity to reclaim “Palestine” from “the river to the sea.” Iran is to Hamas and Hezbollah what George Soros is to the election of nihilistic district attorneys across the US.
What we are seeing across the world is a nascent Holocaust rebirth. The phrase Never Again has been relegated to the dustbin of history and never learned by our ill-educated American youth. To hear Australians chanting “Gas the Jews” in front of the iconic Sydney Opera House was disturbing to say the least. To see Jewish students studying in the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art forced to stay sheltered in a library because it was under siege by a violent mob of Hamas supporters was very troubling. To have such actions supported by ignorant anti-Jewish members of the congressional group known as The Squad is outrageous. These Democrats should change their name to the Know-Nothing Party from the 1850s.
And from our irony department…it should be noted that Cooper Union was the site of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 speech wherein he made clear that he was unalterably opposed to slavery. Thereafter he won the Republican nomination and was elected President. One week before a Democrat killed Lincoln he secured the passage of the 13th Amendment by Congress. This brought an end to the Peculiar Institution.
It is time for the restoration of our civil society and a total rejection of the now evident hatred of all things Jewish.
Recommended reading: The Source by James Michener.
Pop quiz answers:
What author said: “The disappearance of the Jewish state will not mean the disappearance of anti-Semitism.”? Jack Schwarz
What playwright attributed this quote to a Jewish character: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”? The 16th Earl of Oxford whose nom de plume was William Shakespeare
What political figure said: “Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.”? Rashida Tlaib…NOT…it was actually Winston Churchill
What Romanian writer observed: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” Elie Wiesel
Ron
An excellent “Cliff Notes” version of the history of the region. I’m not ready to place you along side Heroditus or Gibbon, but this brief summary of an incredibly complex period in history is a great read for those, like me, who find the history of the region incomprehensible, and who don’t have ten years to study it to conclusions. I still don’t know if any have inarguable, claims to Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. As I recall from History of Religions courses at my Jesuit Alma Mater, the Canaanites might be legitimate heirs. Perhaps they should hire Nikole Hannah-Jones to develop their argument for reparations.
As a side note, I typically spend Thanksgiving with great friends who immgrated from Iran.. The group also incudes a Palestinian family. I’m looking forward to grand discussions next week, and potential fireworks as my Palestinian friend is not at all void of opinions. Your post may have armed me to participate semi-intelligently in the debate, or I might simply get violently attacked.
Terry
You read my mind with the redefinition of anti-semite to anti Jew. 99% don’t know what they are saying when they use the term.
Great paper! Keep spreading the knowledge!!
The Observer
Excellent post with historical context. A few notes for your consideration.
– if long-term peace and minimizing deaths in the Middle East are the goals then we must understand the deeper involvements of the real puppeteers of this conflict. Ultimately if the conflict ends tomorrow Hamas leaders will be significantly poorer. Why have the peace attempts, which included the offerings of land, of the past 30 years fail?
– on the flip side, how will the inevitable destruction of Hamas bring about real peace and prosperity to both people? I am doubtful it’s achievable without understanding who really is fueling the conflict in a perpetual manner.
Snowflake liberal
Ignoring anything after 1922 is pretty telling for a Zionist. All ethnostates are bad including Israel.
admin
Ignoring 3000 years of history makes you appear ignorant…which is stating the obvious. Israel is not an occupying force and it is an open democracy which protects all of it’s citizens including Arabs. It is stunning the LBGT community supports Hamas because Hamas would kill them first. Next time comment at least pretend you have a 3 digit IQ…all evidence to the contrary
Snowflake liberal
They don’t “protect” Arabs. Quite the opposite considering they have bombed them for decades and don’t even treat Christians well.
Being in the LGBT community doesn’t mean you can’t be against slaughtering those who don’t like you. Sticking up against the mass murder of those who wouldn’t do the same is pretty noble if you ask me.
admin
You are quite clearly a product of our public education system because your ignorance is appalling. There is no record of Israel indiscriminately “bombing” Arabs. On the other hand Israel was attacked by Arab forces without warning in June 1967 which ignited the so-called Six Day War. In October 1973 the Arabs started the Yom Kippur War. It was unprovoked. In 2005 Israel unilaterally vacated the Gaza. There are over 2 million Arabs who reside peacefully in Israel…20% of the population. They have not made any effort to leave Israel because they are treated well. It is interesting to note that Egypt closed it’s borders to ensure that no Palestinians could escape the Gaza. The Abraham Accords, negotiated by the Trump Administration, appear to have sufficiently alarmed the Arab community in Gaza such that the recent attack by Hamas was made in response. The atrocities committed by the Hamas savages are indefensible for most people but not, apparently, by folks like you who simply hate the Jews. There was a similar strain of hatred in the 1930’s in Germany. One wonders if you, like Rashida Tlaib, get a “calming feeling” when you think of the Shoah. You might want to keep your powder dry until you get at least a third grade command of the facts.
As to the LGBT community…are you willing to acknowledge that the Arab community is utterly intolerant of gays and lesbians. Ahmadinejad, with a straight face, told the UN General Assembly that there were no homosexuals (still alive?) in Iran. A silly claim. And I will further assume that your are a misogynist because you support the mistreatment of women in Arab countries. The term useful idiot clearly applies to folks who make such silly arguments.
I hope you were at least mildly upset by the Hamas beheading of babies when the attacked Israel although as “snowflake liberal” you might actually support post-natal abortions.
The Context Guy
Here are some facts to consider.
– Vast majority of Israelis do not hate or seek the destruction of Palestinians. They wish for peace and coexistence. Hamas, the freely elected ruler of Gaza, bases its very existence on the complete annihilation of Israel.
– During the Oslo Accord when peace was within reach, it was sabotaged by radicals… most notably by Hasbollah and Hamas. This went on over 10 years until all efforts were abandoned. History has a way of repeating itself.
– People love slogans like “apartheid state” and “genocide”. Much of it is ignorant rhetoric. 20% of Israel’s population are Arabs many of whom are Muslim. They have the same rights as Jews and live better than their neighbors.
There is hope for both people to live in safety and dignity but in my view it will not be achieved with radical elements in control.
Stephanie Horton
Very interesting post! Unfortunately, some people choose to argue headlines because they do not wish to actually research for themselves. The lack of intellectual curiosity is appalling in this country. But, then again, our schools teach us to recite “facts” without much thought into their basis. I recall in college, I learned very quickly that if I wrote a paper that support my professor’s opinion, I would get an A. I like the statement: You don’t get an education at Harvard you merely attend Harvard. Not that I attended Harvard, but I do think there is broad applicability throughout our higher education system.